openBench Labs
Executive Briefing:
CloudShare Jumpstarts The Staging and Collaborative
Testing Of Business Workflows via Cloud-based VMs
Cloud-based Workflow Virtualization
MOVINGVIRTUALIZATION FROMMACHINES TOWORKFLOWS
In the midst of global economic turmoil, data centers now face tight budgets and staffing pressures at a time when solutions to improve IT efficiency are at an all time high in complexity. To raise the efficiency of IT operations, the consensus among CIOs is that virtualization of systems and storage in a Virtual Operating Environment (VOE) is the magic bullet for hitting higher resource utilization and lower management costs. The scope of this consensus is so broad that Symantec’s 2010 State of the Data Center report pegs 83 percent of 1,780 IT sites—representing a full range of small- to
large-enterprises—were in some stage of working with server virtualization.
An important benefit of a VOE is the ability to let IT administrators work with a limited number of abstract device pools rather than multiple instances of
proprietary devices. Nonetheless, virtualized systems and storage introduce multiple levels of logical abstraction and resource
redirection, which obscures and complicates important IT operations.
For savvy CIOs with internal constituencies, as
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Executive
Briefing:
C
loudShare Jumpstarts The Staging and Collaborative
Testing Of Business Workflows via Cloud-based VMs
Jack Fegreus January 2, 2011
Hypervisor-Independent Cloud Computing
CloudShare Enterprise Development Platform for VM Workflow
1)Rapidly Provision Virtual Environments:CloudShare supports a template library of virtual machines complete with Windows and Linux operating systems and common applications such as SQL Server, SharePoint 2010, Oracle, Active Directory, and MS Office, to enable the provisioning of working VMs in a matter of minutes.
2)Virtualize Entire Environments:CloudShare’s application management layer features a hierarchy of virtualized infrastructure constructs that extend to virtual prototypes, which consist of virtual machines, storage, networks, and installed software and are virtualized as an atomic element for snapshots.
3)Generate Multiple Virtual Environments: CloudShare builds an environment on demand for each user by assigning the snapshot of a prototype a time package for operating the environment and access rights for the objects in the prototype based on user identity.
4)Easy to use Drag-and-Drop Integration: By leveraging RDP protocol support, CloudShare provides developers with a drag-and-drop interface between their desktop PC and the VMs in their working environment.
5)Share Virtual Environments via the Web without Agents: Automated emails to clients allow developers to send invitations to access virtual environments via the web and share files.
6)Track and Analyze Response to Invitations and Usage:Advanced analytics track and differentiate guests from multiple partners while tracking session events and time on line.
well as CTOs, integrators, and consultants serving external constituencies, CloudShare provides a cloud-based extended VMware environment to build and share sophisticated IT solutions for complex application-driven IT environments. Using CloudShare’s unique ability to virtualize an entire workflow of VMs and the software running on those VMs, IT developers can rapidly create prototypes of complex business solutions.
More importantly, the next wave of virtualization projects will see a shift in the focus of IT from opportunistic
consolidation projects to the complex application-centric
issues of critical business processes. New virtualization projects will involve multiple virtual machines (VMs) and must meet rigorous Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for process availability and continuity.
IT projects of this scope raise significant issues with respect to provisioning hardware and software for the pre-production environment. In addition, IT providers must be able to demonstrate that a solution is able to support a business process to a level that is
acceptable to line of business executives.
Using CloudShare, IT providers are able to collaborate with customers, partners, and colleagues in a way that goes well beyond point-and-show presentations that characterize standard webinars. CloudShare provides users with true hands-on interaction with a dedicated production-class instance of a complete IT environment.
What distinguishes the CloudShare user experience from that of typical cloud-based VMware environments is CloudShare’s ability to virtualize an independent copy of an entire workflow—VMs, storage, networking, and preinstalled software—and present it with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop user interface. Virtualized on demand workflows also boost development capabilities by allowing software teams to freeze entire workflows to track subtle integration problems that can degrade a process workflow without actually introducing a traceable error. As a result, any IT-provider can now lay a foundation for a rock-solid excellence by delivering over the web robust, agent-less solutions for
pre-production tasks such as development, testing, QA, staging, and back-end training sessions. Furthermore, CloudShare provides IT providers with client marketing options and sales tools that are as powerful as the development tools. With the growing adoption of IT Service Management (ITSM) paradigms, including SLAs, even CIOs now have to sell the credibility of IT internally to line of business executives. As a result, IT providers with internal, as well as external constituencies can benefit from the use of CloudShare even if they are not developing VM-based services.
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“W
hat distinguishes the CloudShare user experience
from that of typical cloud-based VMware
environments is CloudShare’s ability to virtualize an
independent copy of an entire workflow—VMs, storage,
networking, and preinstalled software—and present it
with an easy-to-use drag-and-drop user interface.”
VIRTUALIZATION OFVIRTUALENVIRONMENTS Key drivers of the next wave of
virtualization projects for mission-critical applications are the growing concerns of line of business executives over business continuity in a competitive 24x7 economic environment. The challenge for IT is to assuage the business continuity fears of
corporate executives within budget constraints that exclude costly disaster recovery components, such as fault-tolerant servers, redundant hardware and software, and standby network bandwidth.
The cost-effective solution for business continuity that IT is now embracing is an extended VOE for mission critical applications. Using a hierarchy of workloads as fundamental building blocks, IT can respond in minutes to changes in business
processing via the automatic provisioning and moving of VMs. This is a game changer for the old perception of IT as being a cost center and not a business enabler.
Nonetheless, moving beyond simple stand-alone VM solutions into the world of complex business workloads increases the complexity of provisioning and prototyping. Using CloudShare, however, IT can focus entirely on the construct of a workload, which has a natural affinity to a CloudShare environment and a business service.
FROMWORKFLOWPROBLEM TOCLOUDPROTOTYPE
Large complex workflows are especially problematic for in-house IT groups. The issue for them is the freeing up sufficient resources to provision a full environment for testing and evaluation. Using the CloudShare environment, the only resource needed for testing and development is a desktop PC with a high-speed connection to the internet.
To test the ability to stage a second-generation proof of concept VOE that
demonstrates the ability to deploy and collaborate about a business continuity SLA, we used CloudShare to create a prototype cloud platform with five VMs: four servers and one desktop. Three servers ran 32-bit Windows Server 2008, the fourth ran 64-bit
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OS ANDSOFTWARETEMPLATES
IT professionals can select from numerous OS and applications software provided by CloudShare to jumpstart the building of prototypes without having to provision software or the appropriate licenses. Using the new CloudShare ProPlus edition, which is geared toward IT developers, choices are made by picking from a software carousel.
“U
sing the CloudShare environment,
the only resource needed for testing
and development is a desktop PC with a
high-speed connection to the internet.”
Windows Server 2008 R2, and the desktop VM ran Windows XP Pro. In addition, we installed Active Directory 2008, DNS, IIS 2008, and Exchange 2010 on the servers. We also installed up.time 5 server resource monitoring to track performance, resource usage, and SLA compliance. On the desktop VM, we ran MS Office 2010 and Acrobat X.
To simplify the configuration of VOE prototypes, CloudShare has agreements with various vendors to provide developers with VM templates that include an operating system and important business systems. As a result, developers using CloudShare don’t have to purchase and install operating systems and applications.
There is a library of
templates for VMs that include a pre-installed version of Windows or Linux, as well templates that include common Windows server and desktop applications, such as MS Office, SharePoint 2010, MS SQL and Oracle. In addition CloudShare is adding applications from other vendors, including SAP.
For our test environment, we were able to utilize a VM with Windows Server and Active Directory configured for use a Primary Domain
Controller. In addition, our Windows XP Pro client desktop system had MS Office 2010 pre-installed.
SIMPLIFIEDCLOUDPROVISIONING
More importantly for prototype development, CloudShare provides a robust drag-and -drop environment that supports file sharing between the PCs or workstations used by IT professionals and the VMs that they are accessing. In particular, access to a VM using the Windows RDP client is simplified through the CloudShare environments display, which identifies all VMs in the prototype and their configurations.
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ENVIRONMENTVIRTUALIZATION
For each user, a unique environment is created on demand from a snapshot of a prototype, which consists of VMs, storage, networks, and installed software. A CloudShare environment adds a run time component and refines the prototype by defining access specifications including automatic logins. In addition, the environment provides a view list for VM access.
Both the internal and external addresses are provided for each VM. Using the external address, a connection can be made using the RDP client on a Windows system or a connection can be made directly using a web browser. This later method can also be set for RDP and file sharing. In addition, a VPN can be configured to enhance connectivity between on site systems and the cloud environment.
Using both access methods, we configured IIS 2008,
Exchange 2010 and up.time 5 on three Windows servers. For our SLA proof-of-concept
demonstration, we utilized our VM running up.time 5 to create monitoring services for each virtual server in our prototype. We also defined availability and performance Service Level Objectives for our SLA. These objectives were dependent on both our AD controller and the VM running Exchange 2010.
With our proof-of-concept test designed to demonstrate the use of our software and VMs in a client’s production environment, we made the desktop VM the central reporting device within our VoE. As a result, we were able to simplify our client’s experience by allowing them to view and manipulate all critical software from the desktop VM. In addition, we set up the desktop VM to display project documentation when a user logged in.
With each client enjoying a private instance of the test environment, each client could interact with the proof-of-concept demonstration in a completely isolated sandbox environment. Every invitee client was free to engage or adjust any settings without regard to any other guest user. For our test demonstration, this was critical for the integrity of the user experience with regard to both the functionality and the performance of our workflow.
In particular we had chosen to build a demo of a service resource monitoring application that was designed to provide an IT operations group with the ability to both monitor and define an SLA for business processes. Such a demonstration would not be meaningful without full isolation of each user’s environment.
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VM TRANSACTIONPERFORMANCE
From the desktop VM in our CloudShare environment, we accessed the up.time software, which was running on a Windows 2008 R2 server, via the up.time web portal. We then assessed the performance of our VM running Exchange 2010 while it ran the JetStress benchmark. With a single virtual drive for the OS, the Exchange logs, and the mailbox database, our VM server was still able to process close to 700 transactions per second during the database maintenance phase of JetStress.
BUILDINGIT CREDIBILITY
While CloudShare provides an exceptional development
environment, its most important value proposition stems from its service management capabilities. CloudShare is not simply about creating an easy-to-use development environment to build and stage complex VM workflows: CloudShare
is about collaboration and building credibility in both the solution and the solution provider. To set the stage for these functions, CloudShare utilizes a web-based management dashboard along the lines of Salesforce.com.
The dashboard serves to integrate the
interactions of two hierarchies: The technical characteristics of the VM workflows, and the personal characteristics of teams of users and developers. Like all management dashboards, the CloudShare GUI presents different UI pages with different data to users based on the user’s hierarchical permissions.
What makes the CloudShare dashboard unique is the integration of user and time based permission levels, which occurs when CloudShare delivers a working environment to a user based on the
snapshot of a prototype. As a result, CloudShare can use a single snapshot of a prototype to deliver one environment that has a two-year life cycle with domain administrator level access privileges and another environment that has a life cycle of only 15 minutes with end-user access privileges. What’s more, users with a high enough privilege level in CloudShare can change life cycle and access settings on the fly.
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CLOUDSHAREDASHBOARD
The enterprise version of CloudShare has numerous tools for consultants, integrators and commercial software vendors. In this version there is an elaborate collaboration model that runs the gamut of direct clients, partners, and their clients. Through the enterprise CloudShare interface, very fine-grained client usage data can be analyzed in both CloudShare and Salesforce.com.
“C
loudShare is not simply about creating
an easy-to-use development
environment to build and stage complex VM
workflows: CloudShare is about collaboration
and building credibility in both the solution and
the solution provider.”
KEEPINGCLIENTINTERACTION ONTRACK
User interaction begins when an invitation is sent to a new prospective user to access a CloudShare environment. Invitations can be sent to a true end user or a vendor partner. For large vendors, CloudShare provides the capability to compare and track the activities of users brought into an environment by partners.
Once an invitee accepts an invitation and logs into the defined environment, that person becomes a user within CloudShare. CloudShare will then track the user’s activities within the environment. IT professionals can use
CloudShare’s activity model to track IT staff progress on pre-production activities, such as development, testing, and QA. What’s more, just as IT vendors can estimate the likelihood that an invited user will buy a product from that person’s activity pattern, IT professionals can use the CloudShare statistics to identify potential internal end-user support issues, such as those created when line of business users do not spend sufficient time training with a new software environment.
THEZEN OFCAPABILITY ANDCREDIBILITY
Current IT surveys consistently show that over 80 percent of IT sites are in some stage of system virtualization. Most have successfully gone through the first stage of virtualization, which focuses on the consolidation of systems running workloads not deemed critical for business process support. The next wave of virtualization, however, is set to target important business processes in order to leverage the performance and structural resilience that at VOE provides.
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RESOURCECLASSIFICATION
User interaction begins with an invitation to use a CloudShare environment. Invitations can be sent to end users or vendor partners. Once an invitee accepts an invitation, that person becomes a user and CloudShare starts fine-grain tracking of all activity with respect to an environment. IT vendors use this data to analyze top sales prospects and compare the efforts of partners. In house IT professionals can use the collected data to track IT staff progress on pre-production activities, such as development and QA.
This shift brings greater pressure on IT to provision and test multiple VMs in support of complex workflows. As a result, IT will have to provision projects with sufficient physical and software resources required to support business process
applications that run on multiple
VMs and involve multiple software licenses.
For internal IT departments, the process of developing a proof-of-concept project, which will have to be tested and the accepted by end-user organizations is little different from the process followed by IT vendors in the virtualization space. As a result, in-house IT groups can garner many of the same advantages the CloudShare VOE platform offers professional developers.
In particular, the ability to significantly jumpstart the process of configuring a test bed with multiple VMs running the appropriate base software is a universal necessity for any IT
organization. More importantly,
CloudShare provides a number of subtle benefits that are quite sophisticated and can provide substantial savings in development time. One of the most important of these features comes in the ability to utilize the central construct of prototype virtualization, which treats all systems and resources in a workflow as a single object.
To allow vendors to offer multiple clients access to their own copy of a virtual environment, CloudShare applies the construct of a snapshot to all of the systems that underpin a virtual environment. Each user launches a fresh copy of the environment based on snapshot of a prototype. When developing a complex system to support a business process, small changes to programs running on separate VMs can cascade on the entire system making debugging a very complex process.
Utilizing snapshots of workflow prototypes, initiated when a key change is introduced on any VM, IT can freeze entire configurations of multiple VMs and later return on demand to any past configuration in minutes in order to simplify the debugging of a
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CloudShare Feature Benefits
1) Rapid Prototyping with Fully Configured VM Templates:
CloudShare provides VM templates with a Windows or Linux OS installed and many also include popular server software, such as SharePoint 2010 and Exchange for rapid configuration.
2) Access Multiple Versions of a Virtual Environment in Minutes:
IT professionals can create snapshots of entire workflow prototypes and launch an on demand virtual environment in minutes based on the choice of a prototype snapshot.
2) Drag-and-Drop Prototype Configuration:IT professionals can leverage RDP protocol support in CloudShare to drag-and-drop files between their desktop PC and VMs in their working environment. 4) Share Virtual Environments via the Web:Invite users to access a
personal independent instance of an environment for pre-production activities conducted by IT staff such as development, testing, and QA. 5) Track and Analyze Invitation Responses: Via a management
dashboard, apply advanced analytics on user activity that can be integrated with Salesforce.com and other CRM software.
“U
tilizing snapshots of workflow prototypes,
initiated when a key change is introduced
on any VM, IT can freeze entire configurations of
multiple VMs and return on demand to any past
configuration in minutes in order to simplify the
debugging of complex business workflows.”
complex business workflow. Attempting to replicate this capability by restoring individual VMs in sequence can easily deteriorate into a massively complex task.
In-house IT professionals can also benefit from the collaboration and client tracking capabilities that CloudShare offers professional developers by using the user-activity model to track the progress of IT staff in pre-production activities, such as development, testing, and QA. IT professionals can also keep much closer track of end-user
participation in system acceptance and training projects conducted before releasing a new complex system into production. As a result, CloudShare can provide IT with a number of cost avoidance benefits, by flagging insufficient testing and preparation.
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Jack Fegreus is Managing Director of openBench Labs and consults through Ridgetop Research. He also contributes to InfoStor, Virtual Strategy Magazine, and Open Magazine, and serves as CTO of Strategic Communications. Previously he was Editor in Chief of Open Magazine, Data Storage, BackOffice CTO, Client/Server Today, and Digital Review. Jack also served as a consultant to Demax Software and was IT Director at Riley Stoker Corp. Jack holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics and worked on the application of computers to symbolic logic.
